Close Your Eyes And Count To Ten

 

 

Here is a writing exercise for writers and non-writers alike.

You are walking along a street when you find an envelope on the ground. It has one letter on it: the initial of your first name.

This is the premise of your novel. Doesn’t matter if you’ve never written so much as a shopping list in real life, for the purposes of the exercise, you are going to plan out this novel.

Let’s take the first phrase, you are walking along a street. Is it the street where you live? An unfamiliar street in another town, city, or country? Did you find yourself there by chance, or is it part of your daily routine to be on this street at this time?

What about the envelope? Perhaps it’s dirty, having lain on the street for some time, or pristine, having ended up there seconds before you arrived. Could it have fallen from someone’s pocket, or does it look to have been deliberately placed?

And the initial. Is it something commonplace, like a J or a D? That could belong to thousands of people. But what if the initial is a Q, a Z, or an X? That narrows it down a bit. Perhaps it is meant for you. Is it a mystery, or were you expecting a letter like this to appear one day. Maybe you have an idea what’s inside, a hope, a fear, a dread.

Do you walk past the envelope or pick it up? If you pick it up, is it still sealed? Does it feel as though there’s something inside? Has it been opened? Have the contents been removed, or are they still there? If there is a letter, do you read it? If there is money or an object, do you take it? If the envelope is still sealed, what’s inside? What does it feel like?

If you leave it where you found it and it was for you, you’ll forever wonder what it was. If you take it and it wasn’t for you, you might bring a world of pain upon yourself and others. Remember, there’s no name or address, just an initial. Your initial. Is it the initial of the name you currently go by, or one from your past? The one name you hoped everyone had forgotten.

Let’s say the initial is a Z. Or is it? Could be an N on its side. What about Q? Does that represent your name, or does it indicate a question? Is the sender expecting a response marked A? Is it a Q for a quote for building works, or a car repair?

But your initial is X. It has to be for you, or does it? X can stand for many things. X the unknown, X a kiss, X the next move in a game of noughts and crosses, X marks the spot.

I could do this all day. The possibilities are endless. Run with these ideas. Add your own. Take these bare bones of a story and build them into a colossus. If you’ve never done anything like this before, it might take a long time to think up new twists and turns, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes, and the faster your brain works. Eventually, you’ll have more ideas that you have time to process. That’s why writers’ hearts sink when asked where they get their ideas. Ideas are everywhere. It’s what you do with them that counts.

Who left the envelope? A blackmailer? Secret admirer? A Future You, coming back to stop Present You making a terrible mistake? The previous owners of your house with a warning that it is haunted or built over a portal to Hell?

Seriously, I can’t stop. But I have to. Because this is where it bleeds into real life. This is not just the plot of a novel, this is the story of your life: the life you have, the life you could have, or the life you mess up. The choice is yours.

This is Future You with a message. That thing you’re about to do, that ‘joke’ with a connotation so ugly, it’ll get you fired; that drink you’ll spike ‘for a laugh’, which will cause a fatal allergic reaction; the car you’ll drive when you’ve only had a few drinks, but enough to dull your reflexes so you can’t hit the brakes in time; the lie you’ll tell that will bring your life crashing down around your ears.

Stop. Think, what if? What if you make a promise you have no intention of keeping and someone completely changes their life because of it? What if you make threats online because you mistakenly think you’re anonymous and the police turn up on your doorstep.

What if you stop and think about consequences before you act? Won’t life be easier if you don’t have to make excuses, play dumb, hire a good defence lawyer? Careless talk costs lives. Where’s the harm in opening your mind before your mouth?

Try it with just one thing. Take one situation and imagine all the possible outcomes, how ever far fetched. How does it look, on balance? Might it be misconstrued? Is it more trouble than it’s worth? Is it a calculated risk that leads to something great? Is your need greater than someone else’s loss? Is their loss too great to justify your need? Is this the hill you want to die on?

By the way, the X on the envelope is the Roman numeral ten. It’s a reminder of the advice herein, and the title of this imaginary novel:

Close Your Eyes And Count To Ten.